Buy them some body armor

During a recent visit with troops in Kuwait, Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in a rare, unchoreographed moment,
opened the floor to questions. He got a zinger. Why, asked one
serviceman, are troops forced to scrounge through dumps in search
of scrap metal, so they can outfit their vehicles with makeshift
armor? The question, and Rumsfeld’s terse answer, created a
stir in the media, despite the fact that this was not news to many
servicemen and women. There’s been a shortage of human body
armor, too, and some military families have been forced to buy it
stateside and ship it to their loved ones.

The troops in
the Middle East aren’t the only ones who are not getting the
resources and backup they need. The civil servants who manage our
public lands, protect our wildlife and fish, and make sure our air
and drinking water are clean, are also being squeezed. The annual
government-funding bill, signed by the president in early December,
saw most land-management agencies’ budgets stagnate. The
National Park Service got a boost, after budget shortfalls in that
agency made headlines last summer, but observers say it won’t
make a dent in the agency’s multibillion-dollar maintenance
backlog.

The Bush administration is asking land managers
and environmental regulators to be good soldiers and just follow
orders, though those orders sometimes go against the legal and
moral frameworks they are supposed to uphold. With increasing
frequency, agency scientists are watching their work get twisted to
accommodate big business.

Meanwhile, the administration
has done its best to shut down the exchange of information between
government and the public that is central to our
democracy.

Those who dare question authority or stray from
the party line face serious consequences. Teresa Chambers, the Park
Service police chief who told the Washington Post about money woes
in her agency, was promptly fired.

It’s a surreal
time. But, as the cover story in this issue shows, many public
employees are finding ways to stand up for their ethical
responsibilities, uphold the laws and share information with the
public, regardless of the orders coming down from Washington. And
rightly so: Technically, public employees answer to a chain of
command that ends with George W. Bush, but in principle they work
for you and me.

If they’re going to work on our
behalf, they’ll need our support. They’ll need the
public to provide counterbalance to the administration’s
industry-driven agenda. And the past few years have shown that
alliances between the public and civil servants can be powerful
enough to, at the very least, create some moderation. Witness
Wyoming and Montana, where land managers have backed off on oil and
gas drilling proposals in recent months to protect the
Bridger-Teton National Forest and the Rocky Mountain
Front.

So dive in, get involved, send your local land
manager or environmental regulator a letter, weigh in on the
important issues. Public support can provide them with a powerful
shield in a time when there are a lot of bullets in the air.
It’s the closest thing they’ll get to body
armor.